Surely if there is a happy verse in all of Scripture, it is this: "My Beloved is mine, and I am his!" So peaceful, so full of assurance, so overflowing with happiness and contentment—it might well have been written by the same hand that penned the twenty-third Psalm.

Yet though this prospect is exceedingly fair and lovely—earth cannot show its equal—it is not entirely a sunlit landscape. There is a cloud in the sky which casts a shadow over the scene. Listen: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away." There is a word, too, about the "mountains of Bether"—the mountains of division. And to our love, anything like division is bitterness itself.

Beloved, this may be your present state of mind. You do not doubt your salvation. You know that Christ is yours. But you are not feasting with him. You understand your vital interest in him, you have no shadow of a doubt that you are his and he is yours, but still—his left hand is not under your head, nor does his right hand embrace you.

A shade of sadness is cast over your heart—perhaps by affliction, certainly by the temporary absence of your Lord. So even while exclaiming "I am his," you are forced to take to your knees and pray, "Until the day break and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved!"

"Where is he?" asks the soul.

And the answer comes: "He feeds among the lilies."

If we would find Christ, we must get into communion with his people. We must come to the ordinances with his saints. Oh, for an evening glimpse of him! Oh, to sup with him tonight!